think ive been the cause of a break up

[RCToday]

shit I didnt think I was doing anything wrong

I used to text/call him about random stuff

I left work last year, he stopped contact, I had an idea then it might be because of his DP, fair enough

They have now split and Im being blamed

You don't know that you weren't the cause.

Just because you were OK with what was going on doesn't mean the partners of your friends were.

And nor does it mean that the partners were wrong.

The fact that it has happened multiple times would suggest that your ability to read social situations is somewhat lacking.

You see, I think it's a shame that women are paranoid and jealous aobut threats to monogamy because it's such a miserable way to live. There's so much more to do in life than concentrate on whether or not you can force a man to remain monogamous. Particularly given that a person who wants to have an affair will do so no matter how determinely you spy, snoop and bark at anyone or anything that trespasses on your 'territory'.
The obsession with policiing monogamy is very bed for woman. It stops them developing lives and interests of their own, stops them developing friendships with other women (because other women are Threats To Monogamy, of course...), and makes everything about a constant struggle to Keep Your Man. FFS couple-relationships are simply Not That Important.

Well couple relationships are very important to most people. Maybe not to you, but to many.

As for policing monogamy? WTF?

Who does that? Nobody I know.

But still I would think it was weird if some guy from work was texting and ringing me all the time to chat about "random" things.

It just doesn't strike me as how friendships normally develop.

Moving from being a colleague into being a part of someone's outside work life is a delicate process, regardless of attached status.

While someone is still a work friend, it seems weird to be spending a lot of time on "random" texts and little calls.

That's how people carry on when they fancy each other.

Call me old fashioned, but texting a colleague of the opposite sex on a regular basis with small trivial stuff would ring alarm bells unless I was fully aware of the texts, knew the person and knew the other persons partner knew as well.

Naive in the extreme

What I can't understand is the desire to text someone you work with about random topics. Why? What is so important that it couldn't wait until Monday when you saw him in work. Or the following day when you saw him in work?

My dh has a male colleague who does this to all and sundry - I read the messages because of my dh's previous behaviour. And this man texts about the piddliest things - I can't understand what he gets out of it and why he feels it important to remind my dh (along with god knows how many other people) that the census is due and has he done his yet. Or that the interest rate has gone up/down/stayed the same. Or that the petrol prices didn't go up in the budget. Well, yes. We know. We can read/watch tv too. My dh, equally, thinks he's bonkers - lonely, but bonkers.

I just want to tell him to get a life.

Agree chuffin if someone I was not already friends with started texting and calling me about random stuff all the time I would think they fancied me.

I have a great male friend of many years standing. We have a wonderful rapport and when we get together it's as if the rest of the world disappears sometimes.

His partner used to find me threatening, not to their relationship (they're gay, I was de facto not a threat) but he didn't like that when we met up he felt like he barely existed. This was both of our faults, but when I found out about it I asked my (now) DH whether it was true, and he said that yes, when my friend and I got together we were so wrapped up in each other that we kind of left other people out.

This was totally, absolutely neither intended, nor realised. I adored my friend's partner, but my friend and I rarely saw each other and I guess when we did we got carried away with catching up and teasing and arguing and joking together.

Since I realised the effect I was having I have been much more conscious of not making his partner feel excluded. DH never felt excluded in the same way. He's a different kind of person, less sensitive to that kind of thing and he just found us ridiculous and funny when we were together.

So I could well have ended up having a strained relationship with my friend's partner, could have resented him his "jealousy" and allowed our relationship to deteriorate. But instead I paid attention to the ways I was behaving that were making him uncomfortable and addressed them. Now they are both my friends.

But I think couple relationships do matter, even ones you're not in. It matters to me that I get along with the spouses and partners of my friends.

But you are talking about policing monogamy, spidookly. I'm what people here would call a friend to my friends' marriages, but you don't seem to see it that way. When my pals' wives ask them to stop being friends with me, I respect their marriages enough to accept that - with much regret, I have to say.

I have "lost" partners to women they called friends, call me careless or naive. Oddly enough, I blamed my partner not the other woman. It's not my job to ring-fence my partners' social interactions; it's my partner's job to remember he's attached.

I still think you're coming across as bonkers.

In what way am I talking about policing monogamy?

For someone whose lost so many friends and partners, most likely due to an inability (or refusal) to read social situations as nuanced rather than based on rules, you have very strong opinions about how other people should conduct themselves.

"When my pals' wives ask them to stop being friends with me, I respect their marriages enough to accept that"

But why are you even in a position where this has happened multiple times?

It's more than possible to have male friends whose wives like you. Why can't you achieve that?

"It's not my job to ring-fence my partners' social interactions; it's my partner's job to remember he's attached. "

Remembering you're attached is not a job.

Behaving as though you're attached shouldn't be any effort. And nor should behaving like other people are attached, if indeed they are.

What is so bonkers about respecting social boundaries?

who's

Well, you've tapped into a very deep & real fear of mine, Spidookly. It is obvious that I do have an inability to read social nuances, since I managed to choose abusive partners who found it such an immense effort to behave as if attched, they didn't bother. I have been extremely hurt by some of the lost friendships I told you about and still don't believe I behaved in any way inappropriately. But thanks for dredging all those fears up again. Have a nice time passing judgement on strangers, won't you?

I've lost male friends to inadequate whinyarse women in the past as well. However, I now know that all I need to do is wait it out, my friends get sick of the whinyarses, dump them and revive the friendships they lost.

SGB

Why do you choose so many male friends who favour "inadequate whinyarses" as partners?

tbh you sound more territorial than the most insecure girlfriends of friends I've known.

Also, not surprising women don't want you around when you are clearly so hostile to them.

don't you just hate it when you agree with both points of an opposing argument ...

i remember your thread was it last year? about this football thing.

so why did the contact stop? did the dp insist on it? Perhaps the guy was acting a bit odd towards her? maybe he had feelings for you but not you for him.

just wondering why it stopped, and why on earth one year on she would blame you.

Nooone can know whats been going on behind closed doors. Bound to be more to this.

The only woman I have ever asked dh to stop contact with was a friend of ours who started to treat him as her husband. Ringing him at work asking if he could pick up a parcel or some milk for her? Would he come round one evening and change a lightbulb? Did he fancy going out to dinner with her? What did he think of the new dress she had bought? (She put it on to show him). It wasn't till I saw them together that the alarm bells rang. Other than that I have no problem with him having female friends (apart from the one I just don't like ).

How odd that the weak, spineless men are forgiven for dumping a friendship in these situations and it's the women in their lives that seem to take all the flak and accused of paranoia and jealousy.

I certainly wouldn't tolerate a friendship where I was dropped and picked up according to the alleged whims of someone's partner. And like Spidookly, I've always understood if a friendship seemed threatening and have on occasions, spoken to male friends' partners and reassured them in case they were worried.

If after all that, a male friend had let the friendship go, it would be him I would be cross with, not his partner.

I have also been in this situation, with a former colleague who told me that his wife wouldn't understand the friendship and therefore wanted our occasional E mails to be secret. I said no to that and offered to chat to his wife. No was the response - so the friendship lapsed. I certainly wasn't cross with his wife and concluded that all the rumours about his infidelity were probably true and that he was rather weak and spineless.

Naive, socially inept and careless as I apparently am - I rather assumed the wives in question were of a similar strain to those controlling men, who try to stop their wives being friendly with males.

Last year one of my SILs accused me of trying to have an affair with her husband (my brother). Presumably she's not a paranoid whinyarse, either, because she's a woman

Good point Whenwill - people seem to be talking out of both sides of their mouth when it comes to "blaming the woman"

If you feel blamed for a man's poor behaviour it's outrageous, but if a man treats you badly it's his wife's fault.

Women who ditch their friends when they get start a new relationship don't have such a ready excuse.

Also, why presume the woman thinks you're a threat and not that she just thinks you're a pain in the arse? and the fella goes along with it because she plans their social engagements and he is lazy. Then he just pretends it's a whole jealousy drama to get you off his back.

Are you talking about women who don't let their partners have any friends?

Or women who just don't want you aroung?

Those are two very different things.

Oh, I don't know, Spidookly. Ask my SIL. You'd probably find you have a lot in common.

OK sure, you just keep blaming your lack of friends and good relationships on the rest of the world.

I have become distanced from long standing male friends because the new girlfriend/wife/partner felt our friendship was a threat to her relationship.

I kept the distance to avoid getting them into trouble but I always thought the women were stupid, sorry. The fact that real, proper and completely free from attraction friendships have to stop just because a woman is having doubts about how important she is in her own relationship is not on.

Having said that.... I don't mind other other women having good friendships with whoever I am with, but I'm happy to get rid of a man that would show that he cares more about what the other woman want, than what I do . Friendships I tolerate, another woman calling the shots in my own relationship's time, decisions, etc. Nope, even if it is a perfectly innocent relationship.

The thing is, some people do flirt excessively with people they know to be committed elsewhere. And some people cheat on their partners.
But some people are pathologically jealous, whiny and controlling, and some people find this attractive in a partner at first - 'Aww, look how much s/he loves me.' Then they find they've got no friends and the whinyarse partner still isn't happy...

Agreed.

Although I don't know what I find more repellent, the whiny control freaks or the gobshites who think that is attractive and some kind of sign of approval.

Ick.

If a friend ditched me because they thought being bossed around was a sign of adoration I would find it hard to welcome them back into the fold when they got bored of it.